Processor and Virtualization Advances

Dell Inc. unveiled new blade servers designed for virtualization while Microsoft Corp. and Sun Microsystems Inc. reached agreement on cross-platform virtualization initiatives. In other news, Intel Corp. released new Xeon processors and is rumored to be making a major processor announcement that incorporates new virtualization technology.

Focal Points:

• Dell revealed two new blade servers designed for hosting virtual machines and stated it would offer Microsoft's Hyper-V software as a factory-installed option on its PowerEdge servers. The PowerEdge M905 and M805 are four-socket and two-socket blades, respectively. The M905 can support up to 66 virtual machines, according to Dell. Both are available with a choice of Citrix Systems Inc.'s XenServer, Microsoft's Hyper-V, and VMware Inc. virtualization software. The M905 supports up to 192 GB of memory and uses dual- or quad-core Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD) Opteron 8000 series processors. The M805 has a maximum of 128 GB of memory and is available with either dual- or quad-core AMD Opteron 2000 series processors. Prices start at $4,999 for the M905 and $1,699 for the M805. In addition, Dell launched consulting services for Microsoft Hyper-V deployments. The services include assessment, design, and implementation. Prices for consulting services start at $15,700.
• Microsoft and Sun announced new cross-platform virtualization initiatives that validate Sun's new xVM virtualization platform to run on Windows servers 2008, 2003 and 2000. They also announced that they are currently working on engineering changes so that Sun's Solaris operating system can run as a certified guest on Windows Server on Microsoft's Hyper-V. The changes are scheduled to be available with Windows Server 2008 Service Pack 2, although a date for SP2 is yet to be announced. In addition, Sun is expanding its support for Microsoft software by offering Sun Ray thin-client customers the ability to access Windows as a guest operating system running on Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V. With this new interoperability, Sun Ray thin-clients will be able to run Hyper-V to host desktops originating on Windows Server 2008, Windows Vista, and Windows XP Professional and display these desktops on Sun Ray thin-client devices over the network. Sun is also making parts of its virtualization software available for free download via the new OpenxVM.org community.
• Intel announced the release of four 45-nanometer (nm) Xeon processors – the quad-core Xeon L5430, which uses 50 watts of power, the quad-core Xeons X5470 and X9492, and the dual-core Xeon X5270. Clock speed for the L5430 is rated at 2.66 GHz while the X5470 and X9492 have clock speeds of 3.33 GHz and 3.4 GHz respectively. The dual-core X5270 has a clock speed of 3.5 GHz. Intel is also expected to roll out the Dunnington processor this week. The Dunnington processor is expected to be a six-core processor that has 16 MB of cache and a virtualization technology called FlexMigration. FlexMigration is designed to make it easier for virtual machines to migrate from systems that use older 65-nm processors to ones that use the newer 45-nm chips.

Experton Group believes virtualization has reached a technical milestone across the processor and operating system provider community in that all future releases will contain virtualization components and interoperability enhancements.

This is good news for users in that technical barriers to change will diminish as providers cooperate and compete with one another to offer products with heterogeneous components to enable consolidation and virtualization. IT executives should re-examine their key operating system and server providers' roadmaps and strategies and adjust their corporate roadmaps, strategies and target systems so as to optimize their consolidation and virtualization initiatives. IT executives should also revisit their plans every six to nine months to ensure the plans remain in sync and the enterprise is not unexpectedly constrained by changes in vendor strategies or timetables.